In my Petit Larousse the 'W' section takes less than two
pages and the only French-origin word seems to be
'witloof.' It is a variety of chicory. I wonder how it is
pronounced.

School for Muscles, Part Canteen

On the second day of re-hab the leg-therapy lady fed me
a chocolate which powered up my gimpy leg fine. Then I had
to wait until the eighth session to get a super-powerful
espresso café, although it was a bit weak on the
sugar side.

The results have been astonishing and a lot of people
have been complimenting me on not walking like a unbalanced
top anymore. It is all on account of a week's interval
between the chocolate and the café.

Vital
Shopping Tip: Continued

Paris' annual Winter Sales - the 'Soldes d'Hiver' -
began two weeks ago and continue for the next four weeks.
Don't forget the Café Metropole Club's meeting on
Thursday, which will be a fine time to take a two-hour
'breather' from looking for increasingly rare
bargains.

Metropole's Affiliates

The following product or service providers have chosen
Metropole because their offers may be of value to readers
and I agree with them.

'HighwayToHealth'
provides a 'city health profile' for potential Paris
visitors as well as travel insurance. These services will
be a benefit if you've signed up for them before you need
them suddenly - which I hope won't be the case.

'Petanque
America' imports quality Obut boules from France and
will ship them to you anywhere in the Americas - which will
save you from carrying them all the way from Paris. Be the
first on your block to introduce the simple game of
pétanque - or boules.

'Bookings'
is a reservation service for Paris hotels. Check out their
hotel prices and previews and settle on your choice long
before your arrival in France.

Café Metropole
Club 'Updates'

Last Thursday's club meeting was about normal for this
time of year - except for the presence of five members. The
club's secretary will be at the meetings even if no one
else intends to be - because some members show up
unintentionally.

Keep up with your club's 'news' by reading the 'report' of the last meeting.
It was written by the club's secretary as usual and
features photos - some in focus - of all the members who
were present.

The next meeting of the Café Metropole
Club will be on the Thursday, 25. January 2001. Don't
forget that this particular meeting will only happen once.
If you miss it, it'll be gone forever - which is much
longer than an average millennium.

This photo needs
no caption. But for those who've forgotten, it is the
reappearance of the 'Fiat 500 of the Week.'

New readers are also invited to take a look at the
current version of 'About the
Club,' which is useful for finding out about the club's
meeting time and location.

This page also contains other 'facts' about this free
club in Paris, which is the only one 'Metropole Paris' has
for all of its readers who are Metropole Paris readers, or
Café Metropole Club members, or are in Paris, or are
residents here, or any combination of these.

This Was Metropole One Year Ago:

Issue 5.03/04 - 17-24.
January 2000 - This week's issue covered two weeks,
with the Café Metropole column being titled, 'Black
and White All Over.' The 'Au
Bistro' column's title was '35-Hour Work Week Becomes Law.'
This issue had one feature titled 'Paris In Winter's Greys
- Photography and Eugène Atget.' The Café
Metropole Club got a boost from a member, called
'Kathleen's Modest Proposal.' The club's weekly updates
featured two of them - on 20. January as 'A Very Quiet
Meeting' and on 27. January as 'An Extra Quiet Meeting.'
The 'Scene' column's ho-hum title was 'Not Much New Stuff -
Yet.' There were four new 'Posters of the Week' and Ric's
Cartoon of the Week was captioned 'Where Is
Libya?'

This Was Metropole Two Years Ago:

Issue 4.04 - 25. January
1999 - The week's Café Metropole column was
titled, 'Paris Launches Prohibition.' The 'Au Bistro'
column was titled, 'When Two Is Better Than One.' This
issue's only feature was titled, 'In the
Père-Lachaise Cemetery.' The 'Scene' column was
titled, 'Now Featuring More of 1999' after a week of 1999
the previous week. There were also four 'Posters of the
Week' and Ric's Cartoon of the Week had the caption of
'Autoroutes are Clear Again.' This wasn't in
Paris.

Metropole's Dubious Count-Up

So far Metropole's postmillennial brand-new and totally
original 'count-up' - introduced here last week - has
managed to elicit exactly one snort of disgust from one
reader, who doesn't have to remain nameless but will.

Paul Babbitt, a Café Metropole Club member and
New Jersey resident inspired this new 'count-up.' How it
got into its present form isn't exactly Paul's fault - just
so you know to whom the 'disgusted snorts' should be
addressed.

Metropole's new 'count-up' is based on the likely but
approximate date of the very first American tourist's visit
to Paris. The name of this person has been determined to be
Benjamin Franklin. Paul has written that he was not only
probably the first American tourist in Paris, but
perhaps the most popular - and possibily responsible for a
local fad called 'Franklinmania.'

Benjamin Franklin borrowed a lot of money from the
French government so there could be a country called the
USA, which is famous for software, Japanese pickup trucks,
and lots of money - which can be helpful for visits to
Paris. He arrived in Auray on Tuesday, December 3, 1776,
and immediately proceeded to Paris. For the sake of this
'count-up' the ETA of the first American tourist's arrival
in Paris is Thursday, 5. December 1776.

Day One of the 'Count-Up' is therefore Friday, 6.
December 1776. As of today, it has been 81,862 days since
the first American tourist arrived in Paris.